A Spontaneous Trip to the Beach

We sometimes miss seeing large open rolling fields, farm country, mountains, any kind of hills for that matter, Buuuuuuuut, we LUUUUUUUV being so close to the beach! Yesterday afternoon when Stan came home from work at 4:20 Olivia said, "We wanna go to the beach!" and Stan sweetly said, "Sure! Let's do it!" So we quickly made a picnic dinner, got dressed, piled into Jo-Jo, put the top down and headed south on 17 to Fernandina Beach. It was an absolutely glorious late afternoon visit to the beach. Just perfect! I said to Stan as we ate ice cream at Dairy Queen after we left the beach, "I feel like I've been on a little vacation." That's the great thing about the beach being so close. We do feel like we can slip away on a little mini vacay whenever we have a free morning or afternoon. Stan and I first ate at that Dairy Queen in the May of 1992 when I was 15 and he was 16. His sister, Karen, who was a couple years older, was staying at a condo on S. Fletcher (A1A) on the beach front with several other friends since it was Prom weekend. We were both too young to go to the Junior/Senior Prom, so we were hanging out at the beach instead. I remember walking out on the pier by the condos overlooking the ocean with him in the moonlight, and I don't remember a lot of the details of that conversation, but that was the night that I really remember falling for him. I had had a crush on Stan since I was in 7th grade, but there was something significant about the intimacies shared that night that changed my feelings from just a crush to admiration and respect. Somehow it was a turning point, and I'll never forget that night--at least in fuzzy details with a warm glow around it--even the trip to the DQ to get blizzards! :)